Best Family Law Practitioners in Godalming

The No-Fault divorce process can be much less stressful than the fault-based divorce process as there is no blame on either party and therefore confrontations and objections are less likely, however, time-wise it can take as long as a fault-based divorce. From application to conditional order will take roughly five and a half months and from conditional order to final order will take a minimum of 6 weeks. If all moves swiftly a divorce can be concluded in 7 months.

A divorce application is the application to the Court to dissolve a marriage. The application is filed by the spouse seeking the divorce (the applicant) and is served on the other spouse (the second applicant or respondent). Every divorce must be started by a divorce application. The petition is filed online and so there is no longer a physical paper document, though you will be able to download pdfs of all of the documents.

A divorce settlement is the financial agreement reached between parties as to how the marital assets and debts should be shared between them. A divorce settlement is often referred to as a consent order as this is the document which records the financial agreement reached and is lodged with the Court part way through the divorce process for approval by a Judge. Once the consent order has been approved by the Court it becomes legally binding upon the parties.

A divorce certificate is also known as a Final order. It used to be called a Decree Absolute. This is the final court order in divorce proceedings. It is required to dissolve a marriage. The Final Order confirms that you are now legally divorced and replaces your marriage certificate. You should keep the Final order in a safe place as it will be required if you wish to remarry in the future (or change your name). You can apply for Final order six weeks and one day after the date that the Conditional order was granted. The Conditional Order used to be called a Decree Nisi. You may want to delay an application for Final order if you have not yet reached an agreement with your former partner about your finances and children. This is because there may be inheritance or pension implications once you are no longer married to one another. An interest in the family home may also be affected.